Page 34 of Unexpected Magic

“We can start now, if you wish,” Jasper offered. “Put your book away and come with me.” He didn’t know if she truly could learn to manage her gift, but the implications of a catalyst being able to direct her power were intriguing.

If nothing else, working together as student and teacher might bring them closer.

*

Delia had neverimagined her singing lessons would be the first step in learning magic, but Jasper’s first exercise involved breathing in a measured and controlled fashion, and Delia had been practicing that since she was fourteen.

With a word of praise, Jasper moved on to lesson two, and again, she found it was something she could already do. “Sensing the presence of magic is essential to managing it,” Jasper said, which should have been obvious, but Delia had never thought of it before.

“I think I already do this,” she said. “Is it a kind of shimmer that happens when you use your gift? Or when a spelled object is activated?”

His eyes sharpened. “You see a kind of shimmer?”

“Yes, of different colors. Yours is emerald green with gold sparkles, and much brighter now than it was before you first changed, and it was always clearer and stronger than Captain Harewood’s. His is a sort of rose pink.”

“You see other mages’ magic, too?”

“Anyone using a gift,” Delia confirmed. “And magical beasts glow all the time. Isn’t that normal?”

Jasper shook his head. “I have never heard of people being able toseemagic use. Auras, yes. Even some thaumatypica can see auras. But not the actual magic. Unless it is something visible, like a mage bolt.”

Delia was amazed. She had always been able to see the shimmer of magic use. It did not seem very useful, so she had largely ignored it, and she had assumed that everyone else was doing likewise.

Certainly, on the occasions she had told someone else, they had appeared unsurprised—though when she thought back to one or two of those, their comments might have meant they simply didn’t believe her.

Like the governess who stood with her to watch her father spell the seed grain against rot, weeds, and pests, who had said, “Shush, Delia. Your father needs silence while he works.”

Or her mother, when they were watching Madame Greensmith spell the pantry against rats and cockroaches. Mama had said, impatiently, “Yes, yes, Cordelia. But I do not have time for that now.”

Since confiding in others was discouraged, she gave up bothering.

“That is a real advantage,” Jasper said, now. “Controlling one’s breathing and sensing magic are the foundation of all spells. Can you ‘see’ your own gift? Because you must sense it to manage it.”

“No,” Delia said absently, her mind absorbed with another question.So, all mages must learn to sense spells, but only I can see them. And only in other people. Useless, as I always thought. “How do you and other magic users sense spells, then, if you don’t see them?”

“There’s another sense,” Jasper answered. “It is not quite seeing, touching, smelling, hearing or tasting, but it somehow has the characteristics of two or three of those. It is different for each mage. To me, magic is an elusive combination of a taste, a smell, and a sight. Captain Harewood says he can feel it and hear it. A brush across the skin, an elusive fragrance. Give me a minute, please.”

He was frowning in thought. Delia had more questions, but he had asked for a minute, so she remained quiet. Then he nodded, as if coming to a conclusion. “Delia, is there a shimmer on the world around you, even a faint one, when someoneisn’tusing their gift?”

Is there?Delia hadn’t thought about it. But she looked around her, and concentrated. “I suppose so, but nothingunusual. Everything always has a faint shine to it, like a magical beast’s glow but much fainter.”

“Not to me,” Jasper told her. “I don’t sense magic unless someone is using their gift, or unless a magical beast is present. Can we try something? Just stand there. It occurs to me that perhaps you can see your gift in action but you don’t know that is why the world is shining, because it always does, for you. I’m going to walk away to the other end of our field, and see if I can sense your gift.”

He suited action to word and strode off in the opposite direction to the cavern to the far end of the field about three hundred paces away. Delia waited. She had been discounting the idea that being a catalyst meant she was magically gifted. It seemed more something that happened around her rather than something she did.

But if she was actually seeing it in action—if a man like Jasper, a dragon lord, could sense it as magic—perhaps she really was working magic, albeit without any consciousness or control.

In fact, Jasper said that sensing magic was itself a gift, and she had always been able to do that.Could it be true? Had she and her family been ignoring a true magical gift her entire life?

*

Delia had aunique magical signature, so subtle he had not noticed it in all this time. He could best compare the mage trace to aniseed with undertones of other spices and a hint of the scent of violets. But that last might just be her perfume.

Until now, Jasper had convinced himself the whole sensation was partly her perfume and partly imagination, because it didn’t behave like the sensation of a magical gift being exercised. It didn’t come and go, rising from nothing to a strong signatureand then fading away to nothing again. It was always there, always subtle, always steady.

Yet once they began to discuss magical signatures, Jasper faced the obvious. Delia’s giftwasalways there, always—as far as they could tell—being exercised, albeit without Delia’s control. Could it be that his senses were right after all?

They’d soon find out. If he stood three hundred yards away, out in the open where the breeze was blowing, he’d not be able to detect any trace of perfume or soap or hair pomade. But they already knew her gift was effective out to a distance of half a mile. To Delia’s gift, three hundred yards was nothing. If he could still sense her mage trace from here, he was detecting her gift.